Carnival Cruise Line said a male guest aboard Carnival Panorama jumped overboard while the ship was sailing from Puerto Vallarta, Mexico to Long Beach, California. The crew moved from a missing-guest report to a search and investigation on the same voyage. By late Saturday, the captain and cruise director said onboard camera review had led them to tell passengers the guest had gone overboard.
Puerto Vallarta to Long Beach
The ship had left Long Beach, California, on September 13 for a week-long sailing, then departed Puerto Vallarta at 8 p.m. on Thursday. Announcements about a missing guest were heard around 11 a.m. on Saturday, while the ship was still on the return leg toward California. Guests later said the ship reportedly turned around around 3 p.m., before a shipwide search was announced at about 3:30 p.m.
Carnival Cruise Line said it was providing support to the family traveling with the guest. The company also said the ship's team reviewed CCTV footage and notified both the U.S. and Mexico Coast Guards after the missing-guest report. Our thoughts and prayers are with them and their loved ones, the company said.
Onboard search and review
The sequence aboard Carnival Panorama mattered because the ship first treated the case as a missing guest search, then later told passengers the guest had jumped overboard after the camera review. Guests were told to return to their staterooms during the search, and they were no longer required to stay there after the overboard announcement at about 5 p.m. The shift from a missing-person response to an overboard case set the direction for the rest of the response.
Local authorities were to continue the search and rescue operation, according to the captain and cruise director. For passengers and the family traveling with the guest, the immediate next step was not a return to normal cruising but a continuing rescue operation tied to a voyage already in progress.
